Egypt Sentenced a Lebanese Tourist to 8 years in Prison

A Lebanese tourist who was arrested last month for posting a video on Facebook complaining of sexual harassment and conditions in Egypt was sentenced to 8 years in prison by a Cairo court on Saturday.

Mona el-Mazboh was arrested at Cairo airport at the end of her stay in Egypt after she posted a video tirade on her Facebook page that Egyptian authorities claimed had insulted the country.

The 24-year-old Mazboh complains of being sexually harassed by taxi drivers and young men in the street, as well as poor restaurant service during the holy month of Ramadan and an incident in which money was stolen from her during a previous stay.

She also called Abdel Fattah al-Sisi “unjust” and said” You deserve what Sisi is doing to you, I hope God sends you someone more oppressive than Sisi,” according to Reuters.

A Cairo court found her guilty of deliberately spreading false rumors that would harm society, attacking religion, and public indecency, judicial sources said.

Under Egyptian law, “defaming and insulting the Egyptian people “is a crime.

An appeal court will now hear the case on July 29, according to Mazboh’s lawyer, Emad Kamal.

“Of course, God willing, the verdict will change. With all due respect to the judiciary, this is a severe ruling. It is in the context of the law, but the court was applying the maximum penalty,” he said.

Kamal said a surgery Mazboh underwent in 2006 to remove a brain clot has impaired her ability to control anger, a condition documented in a medical report he submitted to the court. She also suffers from depression, he said.

Under Al-Sisi military rule, rights activists say they face the worst crackdown in their history accusing him of erasing freedoms won in the 2011 Arab Spring uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.